by J. R. Ward
He’d exited beautifully, wiping clean ZeroSum’s drug and bookie businesses entirely. The Mask still had girls for hire, but none of the other stuff was going to go down there or at Sal’s. With the Reverend gone, the bunch of them were almost clean.
“Xhex, say something so I know you’re alive.”
There was no way iAm could get through the door or dematerialize inside to check and see if she was still breathing. The room was a steel safe, utterly impenetrable. There was even fine mesh skirting around the doorjamb so that he couldn’t shadow his way in.
“Xhex, we already lost him tonight. You make it two for two and I’m going to kill you all over again.”
“I’m fine.”
“None of us is fine.”
When she didn’t reply, she heard iAm curse and move away from the door.
Maybe later she could help the two of them. They were, after all, the only people who knew what she felt like. Even Bella, who’d lost her brother, didn’t know the exquisite torture the three of them were going to have to live with for the rest of their days. Bella thought Rehv was dead, so she could go through the mourning process and come out the other side and get on with her life in some fashion.
For Xhex, iAm, and Trez? They were going to be stuck in the limbo-hell of knowing the truth and being able to do nothing to change it—with the result being that the princess was free to torture Rehvenge for as long as he had a heartbeat.
As Xhex thought about the future, her grip on the dagger hilt tightened.
And got stronger as she brought the weapon downward onto her skin.
With her mouth screwed down tight to keep her pain inside, Xhex shed her own blood instead of tears.
Although what was the difference, really. Symphaths cried red, in the manner of the vein anyway.
SIXTY-ONE
Rehv’s brain came back online in a slow wave of flickering consciousness. Awareness flared and faded and returned, spreading from the base of his skull up into his front lobe.
His shoulders were on fire. Both of them. Head was killing him from when that symphath had sweet-dreamed him with the sword hilt. And the rest of him felt curiously weightless.
On the other side of his closed lids, light twinkled around him and registered deep red. Which meant the dopamine was fully out of his system and he was now who he would forever be.
Breathing in through his nose, he smelled…earth. Clean, damp earth.
It was a while before he was ready to do a look-see, but eventually he needed some other reference point than the pain in his shoulders. Opening his eyes, he blinked. Candles as long as his legs were set up at the far reaches of what appeared to be some kind of cave, the tremulous flames atop each one bloodred and reflecting over walls that seemed fluid.
Not fluid. There were things crawling on the black stone…crawling all over—
His eyes shot down to his body, and he was relieved to see that his feet were not touching the moving floor. A glance up and…chains held him aloft from the undulating ceiling, chains that were anchored by…bars inserted through his torso under his shoulders.
He was suspended in the midst of the cave, his naked body hovering above and below the shimmering, pulsating confines of rock.
Spiders. Scorpions. His prison was teeming with venomous guards.
Closing his eyes, he reached out with his symphath side, trying to find others of his kind, determined to get through the place where he was, to minds and emotions he could manipulate to get himself free: He might be in the colony to stay, but that didn’t mean he had to keep hanging around like a chandelier.
Except all he could sense was a web of static.
The cast of hundreds of thousands that surrounded him formed an impenetrable psychic blanket, castrating his symphath side, allowing nothing into or out of the cave.
Anger rather than fear fisted in his chest, and he reached over to one of the chains and pulled on it using his massive pectoral muscles. Pain made him tremble head to foot as his body shifted in midair, but there was no budging his tether or dislodging the bolting mechanism that went through his flesh.
As he swung back to straight vertical, he heard a shifting sound, as if a door had opened behind him.
Someone came in, and he knew who, given how strong the psychic block they were putting up was.
“Uncle,” he said.
“Indeed.”
The king of the symphaths came shuffling around with his cane, the spiders on the floor breaking their quilt of bodies briefly to make way for him before swallowing up his path. Beneath those blood-colored imperial robes his uncle’s body was weak, but the brain on top of that curved spine was incredibly strong.
Proof positive that physical strength wasn’t a symphath’s best weapon.
“How fare thee in thy floating repose?” the king asked, his royal headdress of rubies catching the candlelight.
“Complimented.”
The king’s brows lifted above his glowing red eyes. “How so?”
Rehv glanced around. “Hell of a lock and key you’ve got me under. Which means I’m more powerful than you’re comfortable with or you’re weaker than you wish you were.”
The king smiled with the serenity of someone utterly unthreatened. “Do you know that your sister wished to be king?”
“Half sister. And it doesn’t surprise me.”
“For a time, I gave her what she wanted in my will, but I realized that I was inappropriately swayed and I changed everything. That was what your tithes were for. She was using them to transact business with humans, of all things.” The king’s expression suggested this was akin to inviting rats into one’s kitchen. “That alone indicates she is utterly unworthy to rule. Fear is far more useful to motivate subjects—money being comparatively irrelevant if one is looking to gain power. And killing me? She presumed she could best my succession plan that way, which vastly overestimates her capabilities.”
“What did you do with her?”
More of that serene smile. “What was fitting.”
“How long are you going to keep me here like this?”
“Until she is dead. Her knowledge that I have you and that you are alive is part of her punishment.” The king looked around at the spiders, something close to true affection flaring in his white Kabuki face. “My friends will guard you well, worry not.”
“I’m not.”
“You will be. I promise you.” The king’s eyes returned to Rehv’s, his androgynous features shifting into something demonic. “I didn’t like your father and was quite pleased that you killed him. That being said, you are not getting that chance with me. You live solely as long as your sister does, and then I shall follow your fine example and reduce the number of my kin.”
“Half. Sister.”
“So intent you are on distancing the ties between yourself and the princess. No wonder she adores you as much as she does. For her, that which is unattainable will always hold the most fascination. Which, again, is the only reason you live.”
The king leaned on his cane and began to slowly creep back the way he had come. Just before he got out of Rehv’s sight, he paused. “Have you ever been to your father’s grave?”
“No.”
“It is my favorite place in all the world. To stand upon the ground where his funeral pyre burned his flesh to ash…lovely.” The king smiled with cold joy. “That he was murdered by your hand makes it all even sweeter, as he’d always thought you were weak and worthless. Must have stung him rather badly to be bested by the inferior. Do rest well, Rehvenge.”
Rehv didn’t respond. He was too busy poking at his uncle’s mental walls, seeking a way in.
The king smiled, as if he approved of the attempts, and headed on his way. “I always liked you. Even though you are but a half-breed.”
There was a click, as if a door had closed.
All the candles went out.
Disorientation squeezed Rehvenge’s throat shut. Left alone, floating in the darkness
, with nothing to ground him, terror seized him hard. To be without sight was the worst—
The bolts through his upper body began to tremble slightly, as if a breeze were blowing through the chains and vibrating them.
Oh…God, no.
The tickling started on his shoulders and intensified in a rush, flowing down his stomach and over his thighs, streaming out to the tips of his fingers, covering his back, blooming up his neck to his face. He used his hands to the extent he was able, trying to brush off the horde, but as many as he cast down to the floor, more overcame him. They were on him, moving over him, coating him with a constantly shifting straitjacket of tiny touches.
The fluttering at his nostrils and around his ears was his undoing.
He would have screamed. But then he would have swallowed them.
Back in Caldwell, in the brownstone he was damn well going to move into, Lash showered with lazy precision, taking his time with the washcloth, going in between his toes and behind his ears, paying special attention to his shoulders and lower back. There was no need to rush.
The longer he waited the better.
Plus, what a bathroom to hang out in. Top-drawer everything, from the Carrera marble on the floors and walls to the gold fixtures to the awesome stretch of etched mirror over the sunken sinks.
The towels hanging from the ornate racks were from Wal-Mart.
Yeah, and they were going to be replaced ASAP. The fucking things were all Mr. D had had at the ranch house, and Lash wasn’t about to waste time driving around Caldwell just to find something better to wipe his ass dry with—not when he had his new piece of exercise equipment to put through its paces. After he got his workout in this morning, though, he was going to get on the Internet and order shit like furniture, bedding, rugs, kitchen supplies.
It would have to be delivered to that POS ranch where Mr. D and the others stayed now, though. UPS men were not welcome around here.
Lash left the bathroom light on and walked out into the master bedroom. The ceiling was prewar height, which meant the damn thing was so high cumulus clouds could form and float around the hand-carved moldings if the atmospheric conditions were right. The floor was gorgeous hardwood with inlaid cherry accents, and the walls were papered in an amazing dark green swirl, like the inside covers of an antique book.
The windows had just been sealed over with cheap blankets they’d had to hammer into the moldings—a crying shame. But like the towels, that would change. As would the bed. Which was nothing but a king-size mattress on the floor, its white, quilted skin laid out bare, like a Midwesterner trying to get a tan somewhere fancy.
Lash dropped the towel from his hips, his erection springing forward. “I love that you are a liar.”
The princess lifted her head, her shiny black hair shifting with flashes of blue. “Will you let me go? The fucking will be better, I promise you.”
“I’m not worried about how good it’s going to be.”
“Are you sure?” Her arms pulled against the steel chains that had been bolted into the floor. “Don’t you want me to touch you?”
Lash smiled down at her naked body—which he now owned, for all intents and purposes. She was his gift, given by the symphath king as a gesture of good faith, a sacrifice that was also a punishment for her treason.
“You are going nowhere,” he said. “And the fucking is going to be fantastic.”
He was going to use her until she broke, and then he was going to take her out and make her find him vampires to kill. It was the perfect relationship. And if he got bored with her or she couldn’t perform either sexually or as a divining rod? He would get rid of her.
The princess’s eyes glared up at him, the bloodred color of them loud as a curse thrown at full volume. “You are going to let me go.”
Lash reached down and started stroking his cock. “Only if it’s to put you into your grave.”
Her smile was pure evil, so much so, his balls tightened up like he was about to come. “We’ll see about that,” she said in a low, deep voice.
She’d been drugged by the king’s private guard before Lash had left the colony with her, and when she’d been stretched out on this mattress her legs had been spread as far apart as possible.
So as her sex glistened for him, he could see it.
“I’m never letting you go,” he said as he knelt down to the mattress and grabbed onto her ankles.
Her skin was soft and white as snow, her core pink as her nipples.
He was going to leave a lot of marks on her whip-thin body. And going by the way her hips rotated, she was going to like it.
“You are mine,” he growled.
In a sudden flash of inspiration, he pictured his old rottweiler’s collar around her slender neck. King’s ownership tags were going to look great on her, and so was a dog’s leash.
Perfect. Fucking perfect.
SIXTY-TWO
ONE MONTH LATER…
Ehlena woke up to the sound of china on china and the scent of Earl Grey tea. As her eyes opened, she saw a uniformed doggen struggling under the weight of a massive silver tray. On it was a fresh bagel capped by a crystal dome, a pot of strawberry jam, a scoop of cream cheese on a tiny porcelain plate, and, her favorite part, a bud vase.
Every night it was a different flower. This evening it was a sprig of holly.
“Oh, Sashla, you really don’t have to do this.” Ehlena sat up, pushing back sheets that were so fine and well made they were smoother than summer air against the skin. “It’s lovely of you, but honestly…”
The maid bowed and offered a shy smile. “Madam should wake up to a proper repast.”
Ehlena lifted her arms as a stand was put over her legs and the tray set on top of it. As she stared down at the lovingly polished silver and the carefully prepared food, her overriding thought was that her father had just gotten the same, served to him by a butler doggen by the name of Eran.
She stroked the fine curling base of the knife. “You are good to us. All of you. You’ve made us so welcome in this grand house, and we thank you very much.”
When she looked up, there were tears in the doggen’s eyes, and the maid hastily patted them away with a handkerchief. “Madam…you and your father have transformed this house. We are of great joy that you are our masters. Everything…is different now that you are here.”
It was as far as the maid would go, but given how she and all the other staff had flinched for the first two weeks, Ehlena gathered that Montrag had not been the easiest head of household.
Ehlena reached over and gave the female’s hand a squeeze. “I’m glad it’s worked out for all of us.”
As the maid turned away to resume her duties, she seemed flustered, but happy. At the door, she paused. “Oh, and Madam Lusie’s things arrived. We’ve settled her in the guest suite next to your father. Also, the locksmith is coming in a half hour, as you requested.”
“Perfect on both accounts, thank you.”
While the door was shut quietly and the doggen went off humming a tune from the Old Country, Ehlena took the dome off her plate and knifed up some cream cheese. Lusie had agreed to move in with them and function as a nurse and personal assistant to Ehlena’s father—which was fantastic. Overall, he’d taken to the new estate with relative ease, his demeanor and mental stability better than they had been for years, but the close supervision did much to ease Ehlena’s lingering worry.
Being careful with him remained a priority.
Here in the mansion, for example, he didn’t require tinfoil over the windows. Instead, he preferred to look out at the gardens that were beautiful even after having been put to bed for the winter, and in retrospect, she wondered if part of shutting out the world hadn’t been because of where they’d been living. He was also much more relaxed and at peace, working steadily in the other guest bedroom next to his. He still heard the voices, though, and preferred order to mess of any kind, and he needed the medication. But this was heaven compared to what the l
ast couple years had been like.
As Ehlena ate, she looked around the bedroom she’d chosen and was reminded of her parents’ former manse. The curtains were the same kind that had hung back in her family’s house, huge swathes of peach and cream and red falling from ruched headers with fringe. The walls were likewise done in luxury, the silk paper showing a pattern of roses that matched perfectly with the curtains, as well as coordinating with the needlepoint rug on the floor.
Ehlena, too, was at home in the surroundings, and yet utterly ungrounded—and not just because her life seemed like a sailboat that had capsized in cold water, only to abruptly right itself in the tropics.
Rehvenge was with her. Relentlessly.
Her last thought before she slept and her first upon waking was that he was alive. And she dreamed about him, seeing him with his arms at his sides and his head hanging down, silhouetted against a shimmering black background. It was a total contradiction, in a way, the belief that he was alive measured against that image of him—which seemed to suggest he was dead.
It was like being haunted by a ghost.
Make that tortured.
With frustration, she put the tray aside, got up, and showered. The clothes she changed into were nothing fancy, just the same ones she’d gotten from Target and on sale from Macy’s online before everything had changed. The shoes…were the Keds Rehv had held in his hand.
But she refused to think about that.
The thing was, it didn’t seem right to run out and spend a lot of money on anything. None of this felt like hers, not the house or the staff or the cars or all the zeroes in her checking account. She was still convinced Saxton was going to show up at nightfall with an oh-my-bad-all-this-should-have-gone-to-someone-else.
What a whoopsie that would be.
Ehlena took the silver tray and headed out to check on her father, who was down at the end of the wing. When she got to his door, she knocked with the tip of her sneaker.
“Father?”
“Do come in, daughter mine!”